The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) speed test report for the month of May 2018 has revealed that Reliance Jio is the leader in download speeds by averaging 19 Mbps in the said tests, while the Kumar Mangalam Birla-led telco Idea Cellular is ahead in terms of average upload speed in the country. It came as a surprise that Reliance Jio’s average download speed came out to be more than double of its closest competitor – Bharti Airtel. While Airtel pegged an average download speed of 9.3 Mbps, the Mukesh Ambani led telco aced the test by a much better average of 19 Mbps. Trai published this data on MySpeed Portal, a dedicated website catering to bringing speed related information from the carriers.

Other telcos, like Vodafone and Idea Cellular, averaged download speeds of 6.8 Mbps and 6.5 Mbps, respectively. However, as we mentioned above, Idea Cellular remained ahead of others in terms of upload speed and even beat Jio in the test. Idea Cellular has been the leader in the upload speed segment for a while, and the telco is continuing its domination.

While download speed is important for most tasks like streaming videos, browsing the internet or accessing media online, a good upload speed would mean that users are easily able to send photos, attach media to emails etc.

During the May testing by Trai, Idea pegged a peak upload speed of 6.3 Mbps while Vodafone registered peak upload speed of 5.2 Mbps followed by Jio which registered 4.8 Mbps and Airtel stood at 3.8 Mbps.

It’s notable that during the previous test also, Reliance Jio and Idea Cellular stood in the same position leading in download and upload speeds respectively. The average speed which is calculated by Trai is based on real-time data collected by MySpeed application.

The month of May was also good for Jio since the graph showed an upward incline in the download speed after two continuous months of decline in March and April. The average download speed which was recorded to be 21.3 Mbps in February, fell down to 17.9 Mbps in March and further down to 14.7 Mbps in April. However, like the latest test has highlighted the speed recovered to 19 Mbps in May. Idea’s upload speed continues to decline since the last two months and has shown no signs of climbing up the slope.

Arpit spends his day closely following the telecom and tech industry. A music connoisseur and a night owl, he also takes a deep interest in the Indian technology start-up scene and spends rest of his time spilling poetry and stories on paper.

OffTopic: Jio Lovers, please help me understand if you also face “All lines are currently busy” while calling Jio from Airtel? I have been experinecing this issue in Delhi Circle. This makes me that Jio is unreliable and I am afraid of porting my number to Jio. Any views please?